THE ECONOMIC PAMPHLETEER: Competition Versus Cooperation

Abstract

First paragraphs:

Cooperation has emerged as a new watchword of the sustainability movement. Those who are concerned about sustainability are encouraged to cooperate rather than compete. Food-related cooperatives include regional food hubs, local food networks, food box schemes, food buying clubs, farmers' markets, community supported agriculture operations (CSAs), and farmer-owned cooperatives. Cooperation is a logical response to the obvious ravages of cutthroat economic competition in the American food system. However, we cannot afford to ignore our basic human tendency to compete.

Obviously, unrestrained competition is not sustainable — in the economy, society, or nature. Contrary to popular opinion, Darwin was not referring solely to competition when he wrote about the origin and evolution of species. Individuals often need to compete for the opportunity to pass on their genes, but cooperation is necessary to actually accomplish conception and successful reproduction. Even organisms that reproduce by simple cell division must have a cooperative environment for the offspring to survive and thrive....

Author Biography

John Ikerd, University of Missouri, Columbia

John Ikerd is professor emeritus of agricultural economics, University of Missouri, Columbia. He was raised on a small dairy farm in southwest Missouri and received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri. He worked in private industry for a time and spent 30 years in various professorial positions at North Carolina State University, Oklahoma State University, University of Georgia, and the University of Missouri before retiring in 2000. Since retiring, he spends most of his time writing and speaking on issues related to sustainability with an emphasis on economics and agriculture. Ikerd is author of Sustainable Capitalism; A Return to Common Sense; Small Farms Are Real Farms; Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture; A Revolution of the Middle; and the just-released The Essentials of Economic Sustainability. More background and selected writings are accessible at his University of Missouri website and personal website.

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The mission of the Center for Regional Food Studies at the University of Arizona is to integrate social, behavioral, and life sciences into interdisciplinary studies and community dialogue regarding change in regional food systems. We involve students and faculty in the design, implementation, and evaluation of pilot interventions and participatory community-based research in the Arizona-Sonora borderlands foodshed surrounding Tucson, a UNESCO-designated City of Gastronomy, in a manner that can be replicated, scaled up, and applied to other regions globally.

2019 Shareholder Commentary:Cultivating a Network of Citizen-Scientists to Track Change in the Sonora-Arizona Foodshed (forthcoming)

Example of Programming:

Reimagining Community Cultural Identity, Monday, April 1, 2019

Public Lecture by Carlton Turner, Lead Artist/Director of Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture)

In this talk, Carlton Turner will use the work of Sipp Culture as a framework for how rural communities are grappling with reimagining their cultural identity in the wake of systems consolidation (in educational, medical, and food systems) and expansion of the digital divide across race and class lines.

Carlton Turner works across the country as a performing artist, arts advocate, policy shaper, lecturer, consultant, and facilitator. He is the founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture), which uses arts and agriculture to support rural community, cultural, and economic development in his hometown of Utica, Mississippi.

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—Dr. Nancy Creamer, Director, Center for Environmental Farming Systems, North Carolina State University

The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development is published by the Thomas A. Lyson Center for Civic Agriculture and Food Systems, a project of the Center for Transformative Action (a nonprofit affiliate of Cornell University). JAFSCD is published with the support of these shareholding partners: